• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Supreme Court health care arguments under way

iguanaman said:
You are aleady required to pay Social Security and Medicare so how is this any different? Here is some of Charles Freid's (Reagan's Solicitor General) thoughts on the hearings.

Reagan’s solicitor general: ‘Health care is interstate commerce. Is this a regulation of it? Yes. End of story.’ - The Washington Post
Click to expand...
My favorite part:
EK: To focus on Barnett’s argument, however, is it possible that the government can buy us insurance using our tax money but can’t compel us to buy insurance using our own money?

CF: I’ve never understood why regulating by making people go buy something is somehow more intrusive than regulating by making them pay taxes and then giving it to them. I don’t get it. It was comical to read the Heritage Foundation’s brief attempting to explain why they were changing their position on this. Something needed to be done about this problem. Everyone understood that. So, the Heritage Foundation said let’s do an individual mandate because it keeps it within free enterprise. The alternative was single payer. And they didn’t want that, and I’m in sympathy with that. So now all of a sudden the free-market alternative becomes unconstitutional and terribly intrusive where a government imposition and government-run project would not be? I don’t get it. Well, I do get it. It’s politics.
Click to expand...
 
Harshaw said:
No, I'm making an assessment [yadda yadda yadda]
Click to expand...

Alright, this multiquote **** getting really annoying. To sum up, I said what I meant and if you think otherwise, more power to you. You think anyone is under the impression that I'm shy about stating my opinion? :lol:

"You didn't claim 'same effect' as. You said it meant as."

What does that jabber mean? :lol:

Re: your circular logic, this is one of those sad moments where, if someone is too dumb to see the pure dumbness of what he wrote, he's probably also too dumb to understand the explanation.

"I made a perfectly fine statement; this is a highly childish response."

Says you.

And no, you have not distinguished the cases. You made the "no **** Sherlock" observation that the facts were different and that's about it.

And re: the mandate, you are right -- it is no more a mandate than Paul Ryan's tax credit. Saying you don't give a **** about it doesn't address the subject. I'll pull a Harshaw here and say that you really DO give a **** about it, but you have no answer to it and so you're trying to blow it off. Don't deny it, because I know what you meant better than you do.
 
Last edited:
iguanaman said:
You are aleady required to pay Social Security and Medicare so how is this any different?
Click to expand...

Someone said the same thing in another thread. I'll repost my response here...

This is actually different. You are not mandated to pay into social security in a technical sense. Let me explain based on my understanding of the court case that challenged SS and the governments argument.

Social Security Taxes does not actually directly go to social security. IE there is no actual legitimate trust fund where the money you pay for social security goes directly into said fund and is used to pay back out to you. In reality, "Social Security Taxes" are simply a form of income taxes that goes into the general treasurey. At the same time, "Social Security benefits" are offered to people by the government at a specific rate. These benefits are paid for by the general treasurey fund which allocates moneys to Social Security (and in cases where it allocates less than it should, because its using SS money elsewhere, it gives it essentilaly an IOU).

So with Social Security, in reality, you're not paying for social security in a direct sense. You're paying the government a tax called "social security tax" that goes into the pot with all the other taxes. The government is providing a general service called Social Security to you and it pays for it from that general fund. However, THEORITCALLY SPEAKING either one of those parts...the SS tax or the SS benefits...could go away while the other one remain in place as they don't DIRECTLY connect to each other from a fiscal stand point (though from a legislative stand point that's a different story).

That is why, when SS was argued, it was able to avoid the notion of the government forcing you to pay for social security. It isn't. It's forcing you to pay for a tax. And along with that tax, they are implimenting a new government benefit.

In the case of health insurance, or "burial insurance", there are a few issues that make it different than social security. First and foremost, you're not paying the GOVERNMENT money...you're paying a private company money. So its not the government directly taxing you, but rather overtly taxing you by forcing you to purchase something. Second, the government isn't providing the benefit in this case but rather its a private industry.

Now, what this does mean however is that...as far as case law goes...it would be constitutional in a general sense to do a single payer system. In that case, an individual is paying a "health care tax" that goes into the general fund rather than paying SPECIFICALLY for health care. Along with this, government provides health coverage to its citizens as a benefit, not directly tied to the "health care tax" but theoritically having the deficit in the budget it would cause be covered by the new tax.
 
Zyphlin said:
Someone said the same thing in another thread. I'll repost my response here...

This is actually different. You are not mandated to pay into social security in a technical sense. Let me explain based on my understanding of the court case that challenged SS and the governments argument.

Social Security Taxes does not actually directly go to social security. IE there is no actual legitimate trust fund where the money you pay for social security goes directly into said fund and is used to pay back out to you. In reality, "Social Security Taxes" are simply a form of income taxes that goes into the general treasurey. At the same time, "Social Security benefits" are offered to people by the government at a specific rate. These benefits are paid for by the general treasurey fund which allocates moneys to Social Security (and in cases where it allocates less than it should, because its using SS money elsewhere, it gives it essentilaly an IOU).

So with Social Security, in reality, you're not paying for social security in a direct sense. You're paying the government a tax called "social security tax" that goes into the pot with all the other taxes. The government is providing a general service called Social Security to you and it pays for it from that general fund. However, THEORITCALLY SPEAKING either one of those parts...the SS tax or the SS benefits...could go away while the other one remain in place as they don't DIRECTLY connect to each other from a fiscal stand point (though from a legislative stand point that's a different story).

That is why, when SS was argued, it was able to avoid the notion of the government forcing you to pay for social security. It isn't. It's forcing you to pay for a tax. And along with that tax, they are implimenting a new government benefit.

In the case of health insurance, or "burial insurance", there are a few issues that make it different than social security. First and foremost, you're not paying the GOVERNMENT money...you're paying a private company money. So its not the government directly taxing you, but rather overtly taxing you by forcing you to purchase something. Second, the government isn't providing the benefit in this case but rather its a private industry.

Now, what this does mean however is that...as far as case law goes...it would be constitutional in a general sense to do a single payer system. In that case, an individual is paying a "health care tax" that goes into the general fund rather than paying SPECIFICALLY for health care. Along with this, government provides health coverage to its citizens as a benefit, not directly tied to the "health care tax" but theoritically having the deficit in the budget it would cause be covered by the new tax.
Click to expand...

All of which is just a long-winded way of saying that -- according to opponents of the mandate -- the government could implement an absolutely socialistic single player plan, but for some reason a minor tax penalty to encourage the purcahse of private insurance for private medical care is causing the Founding Fathers to spin in their graves. Are you saying you don't see any disconnect here?
 
Kal'Stang said:
I am currently reading through the Day 2 proceedings here and I just gotta say...I LOVE IT! So far anyways.

Supreme court Oral Arguements
Click to expand...

Hey.:) For some reason i couldn't open your site.

Redress posted a website on the 1st day, I believe, and it was really worth while for me to read them. I tried to wait until the afternoon, to go to the site, so I get the final post.
 
AdamT said:
All of which is just a long-winded way of saying that -- according to opponents of the mandate -- the government could implement an absolutely socialistic single player plan, but for some reason a minor tax penalty to encourage the purcahse of private insurance for private medical care is causing the Founding Fathers to spin in their graves. Are you saying you don't see any disconnect here?
Click to expand...

Actually, it's saying one has case law to at least say that it's constitutional and that another has no such case law to suggest that it's constitutional.

Sorry, I'm more interested in dealing with reality than your misguided dishonest attempt to spin my words into something differnt. Ask me a question about what I actually said rather than your worhless strawman reconstruction of my point and perhaps I may answer.
 
Billy the Kid said:
Hey.:) For some reason i couldn't open your site.

Redress posted a website on the 1st day, I believe, and it was really worth while for me to read them. I tried to wait until the afternoon, to go to the site, so I get the final post.
Click to expand...
It's the official transcript from Tuesday's oral arguments.

The site is www_supremecourt_gov (substituting _ for .) and it's a *.pdf file so it's a safe site. Don't know why your browser wouldn't open it.
 
Last edited:
MoSurveyor said:
It's the official transcript from Tuesday's oral arguments.
The site is www_supremecourt_gov (substituting _ for .) and it's a *.pdf file.
Click to expand...

Thanks. But as I stated, Redress posted a website - this one - SCOTUSblog - Monday. I've been on the site since she posted it for all us on the thread to read. But I do appreciate your efforts.
 
Zyphlin said:
Actually, it's saying one has case law to at least say that it's constitutional and that another has no such case law to suggest that it's constitutional.

[...]
Click to expand...
Which is a sad note considering ...
EK: To focus on Barnett’s argument, however, is it possible that the government can buy us insurance using our tax money but can’t compel us to buy insurance using our own money?

CF: I’ve never understood why regulating by making people go buy something is somehow more intrusive than regulating by making them pay taxes and then giving it to them. I don’t get it. It was comical to read the Heritage Foundation’s brief attempting to explain why they were changing their position on this. Something needed to be done about this problem. Everyone understood that. So, the Heritage Foundation said let’s do an individual mandate because it keeps it within free enterprise. The alternative was single payer. And they didn’t want that, and I’m in sympathy with that. So now all of a sudden the free-market alternative becomes unconstitutional and terribly intrusive where a government imposition and government-run project would not be? I don’t get it. Well, I do get it. It’s politics.
Click to expand...
CF = Charles Fried - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
AdamT said:
What difference does it make what they were doing right before they implemented universal coverage? You mean from a political perspective? Or in terms of how difficult it would be to implement?

Unfortunately it's politically impossible at the moment, which should be obvious from the wild "end times", fire-and-brim-strone rhetoric that's surrounded the very modest AHCA proposals. Sooner or later we are going to have to do it, or else it's going to bankrupt us. Right now we're standing in a tunnel and a train is bearing down on us, and half us have our thumbs up our asses muttering incoherent jibberish about "socialism".
Click to expand...

Nonsense. Leave private insurers alone to keep jacking their rates, eventually they'll have to enter a death spiral. You know what that is right? Accelerating attrition as fewer and fewer can pay the premiums. Something the private insurance industry is doing is failing, so only by letting it fail can it learn from its mistakes and maybe figure out how to offer something sustainable. Don't chain the American people to the sinking ship by mandating we stay hooked in to this failed structure.

And yes it does matter what was going on fiscally and how much health care was costing per capita right before these other countries implemented UHC. We want to entitle all people to limitless amounts of something that already costs more here than it does anywhere else in the world. How does that reduce the amount we devote to health care? It doesn't. It makes us commit to spending more.
 
Last edited:
MoSurveyor said:
Which is a sad note considering ...
I’ve never understood why regulating by making people go buy something is somehow more intrusive than regulating by making them pay taxes and then giving it to them
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I can understand that....

In one case, you're making people enter into a private agreement with a private entity for a private good and service with their own private finances.

In the other case, you're undertaking a standard government function in taxation and having the government provide a governmental service to a citizen.

Secondly, "intrusiveness" is not the standard. Constitutional is the standard. Simply because one may be less intrusive in ones opinion is irrelevant to whether or not its constitutional. The government has a clear constitutional authority to levy taxes on individuals, and to provide some services to citizens as the government. It's far more questionable to suggest that the government has the ability to compell a private individual to spend their private resources on a private good/service from a private company. That opens up a whole different length of issues...for example, if we establish that its perfectly acceptable for the government to do such, they could for instance require that a person pays to undergo certain medical procedures or face a penalty.

It's not whether or not one is more "intrusive". It's whether or not one is within the scope of what the government is constitutionally supposed to be allowed to do.
 
Zyphlin said:
It's far more questionable to suggest that the government has the ability to compell a private individual to spend their private resources on a private good/service from a private company.
Click to expand...
Both parties in the case before SCOTUS have agreed that Congress can force purchase of the insurance at the point of sale, it has come down to an argument over whether the purchase can be mandated before the sale.
 
Zyphlin said:
Actually, it's saying one has case law to at least say that it's constitutional and that another has no such case law to suggest that it's constitutional.

Sorry, I'm more interested in dealing with reality than your misguided dishonest attempt to spin my words into something differnt. Ask me a question about what I actually said rather than your worhless strawman reconstruction of my point and perhaps I may answer.
Click to expand...

Wow, touchy as ever! I'm not disagreeing with your summary of the legalities (haven't reasearched it); all's I'm saying is that there's something whanky in our system when an outright government takeover of the health care system is not a problem, but a minor tax penalty affecting 2% of adults is seen as an overwhelming hurdle.
 
Thunder said:
states require car insurance.
Click to expand...

Completely different issue... They require liability insurance to protect other drivers should you damage or destroy someone else's car through your own negligence.

lenders require flood insurance, including for federally-backed mortgages.
Click to expand...

Once again, that is to protect lenders should a flood destroy the home, to assure they get their money back.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Nonsense. Leave private insurers alone to keep jacking their rates, eventually they'll have to enter a death spiral. You know what that is right? Accelerating attrition as fewer and fewer can pay the premiums. Something the private insurance industry is doing is failing, so only by letting it fail can it learn from its mistakes and maybe figure out how to offer something sustainable. Don't chain the American people to the sinking ship by mandating we stay hooked in to this failed structure.

And yes it does matter what was going on fiscally and how much health care was costing per capita right before these other countries implemented UHC. We want to entitle all people to limitless amounts of something that already costs more here than it does anywhere else in the world. How does that reduce the amount we devote to health care? It doesn't. It makes us commit to spending more.
Click to expand...

I agree with you that the private insurance system is hosed. What I'm saying, though, is that we aren't going to be able to do rational reform, i.e. single payer, any time soon.

I don't see allowing the insurance companies to tank our economy as being a great solution.
 
Grim17 said:
Once again, that is to protect lenders should a flood destroy the home, to assure they get their money back.
Click to expand...
And why doesn't that also work for doctors and hospitals? Why can't they demand some form of assurance they will get their money?
 
Grim17 said:
Completely different issue... They require liability insurance to protect other drivers should you damage or destroy someone else's car through your own negligence.



Once again, that is to protect lenders should a flood destroy the home, to assure they get their money back.
Click to expand...

health insurance protects us from paying for the cost of their irresponsibility. I really don't see a difference. Both dealing with me having to pay for their irresponsibility.
 
AdamT said:
Wow, touchy as ever! I'm not disagreeing with your summary of the legalities (haven't reasearched it); all's I'm saying is that there's something whanky in our system when an outright government takeover of the health care system is not a problem, but a minor tax penalty affecting 2% of adults is seen as an overwhelming hurdle.
Click to expand...

Constitutionally, it is. Obama himself has denied calling it a tax, because he knows he can't call it a tax, because it's not tied to income, value or population, which makes it the type of direct tax that's prohibited by Article I of the COTUS.
 
AdamT said:
I agree with you that the private insurance system is hosed. What I'm saying, though, is that we aren't going to be able to do rational reform, i.e. single payer, any time soon.

I don't see allowing the insurance companies to tank our economy as being a great solution.
Click to expand...

Then you must be a vehement opponent of PPACA.

If you leave government out of it, you also leave insurance companies to fend for themselves, and if that means chasing all their customers away with runaway premiums, then so be it and adios. Runaway prices should be met with going out of business, not bailed out by mandated participation. When government steps in and forces participation, that chains us all to each other and drags us down with the sinking ship that is their defective pricing and reimbursement practices.
 
Last edited:
Harshaw said:
A 9-0 ruling would be stunning. I mean, that's how it SHOULD go, but I see a few of them (like Ginsburg) who would dissent just to dissent if the outcome were not in doubt.
Click to expand...

Ginsberg is a ACLU hack. :lol:
 
MoSurveyor said:
And why doesn't that also work for doctors and hospitals? Why can't they demand some form of assurance they will get their money?
Click to expand...

They should. Therefore they must also able to deny services whenever they do not receive that assurance. Same way any other contract works. Protects both parties.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Then you must be a vehement opponent of PPACA.

If you leave government out of it, you also leave insurance companies to fend for themselves, and if that means chasing all their customers away with runaway premiums, then so be it and adios. Runaway prices should be met with going out of business, not bailed out by mandated participation. When government steps in and forces participation, that chains us all to each other and drags us down with the sinking ship that is their defective pricing and reimbursement practices.
Click to expand...

And where do you think all those customers are going to go, exactly? People are going to stop paying for medical care? Who picks up the tab, then?
 
AdamT said:
And where do you think all those customers are going to go, exactly? People are going to stop paying for medical care? Who picks up the tab, then?
Click to expand...

That's not the issue.

Look, if you think the solution to this runaway cost problem HAS to include every citizen getting every healthcare service he needs whenever he needs it, then you're stuck with our current runaway cost problem, and all you're doing is desperately trying to find someone to pay the mounting tab.

But if you want to fix the problem, you have to accept the fact that some people will be denied medical care, because they have no money and they're not insured, and cumulatively we can't fund unlimited health care for all forever.

Option 1 is stick with our current entitlement mentality re: health care. Give everyone everything they need, and then stick the bill on anyone with any money left in the bank.

Option 2 is reestablish the financial relationship between provider and patient and face the harsh-ass reality that not everyone can be treated--everyone can't have everything.
 
Last edited:
It's not either everything or nothing. There is a minimal level of care that would not include everyone getting everything they want. having access for everyone for that minimal level would be good for the country, and could be done at a lower cost than having that care treated in the ER, or waiting until the cared needed was for a serious condition that now needs serious and expensive care. No one suggests that everyone gets everything.
 
Boo Radley said:
And you're making an assumption they wouldn't be.
Click to expand...

They wouldn't be. It wouldn't be the first time the court has ruled against the constitution though. And I do not believe you have ever read those documents, as you are unable to provide anything except the words of what other progressives have said.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom